The contract will probably say something like “I will do my best to sell your book in return for receive 15% of the deal.” Contracts are generally about two pages long and don’t need to be reviewed by an attorney, although my attorney would argue vehemently that all contracts should be reviewed by legal council before being signed. If you choose to review it yourself watch for these worrisome points.

• If the agent wants to be your exclusive representative for more than one year be leery as to why.
• If the agent wants to charge you for the cost of office overhead if the book isn’t sold then flee. I always feel better if I yell SCAM while fleeing.

After you sign a contract listen closely to your agents advice. If they think your proposal needs to be changed then change it. Your agent has a lot more experience selling books to publishers than you do so pay attention when they speak.

When your agent lands a publisher he should be able to negotiate an advance for your book. Advances range from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand. Cash the check and finish writing your book.

Jacob

Finding an agent is like getting married. No one dates as much as they want to. Your calls are frequently not returned. However, in the end you only have to find one to make it work and to be successful.

Agents will generally respond to your query either by phone if they’re interested or by mail if they are not. The good news is that good news comes early. New authors who are looking for an agent their first novel will not be inundated by phone calls. Agents hear about book ideas every day, they are skeptical of almost every query that lands on their desk, including yours. Be positive and expect a limited number of responses. When you hear from an agent hit the turbo button to accelerate your novel. Don’t squander an agent’s interest in your novel by idling your time away.

When an agent calls be courteous, accommodating, and gracious. At this point you’re the nerdy kid with bad acne that just landed a date with the head cheerleader to homecoming. You need her much more than she needs you. At the same time don’t go overboard with excitement. Tell the agent you will send your proposal to in a few days after you have heard from any other interested parties. If you are fortunate enough to land more than one agent use your agent research to pick the best fit.

Decide which agent you want to use and act quickly. Don’t get frozen with fear and try to decipher the stars to pick the perfect agent. Use your research and common sense to pick a good agent and get her the information she needs.

Jacob

I wanted to add to my previous post about researching literary agents. I have found a few online resources that will help you capture the interest of a legitimate agent.

• Agent Query
  • One of the largest databases of literary agents
• Agent Research
  • This is the love connection of agent sites. They try to match you with the literary agent who is right for your work.
• Writer Beware
  • Warnings about literary fraud and other schemes, scams, and pitfalls that target writers

Jacob

If you have contacts in the publishing world use them to get your work in front of an agent. If don’t have a contact then make a list of the top 10 agents you want to work with and send each one a customized query letter.

The query letter is a one page attention grabbing letter that provides an agent with enough information about you and your project to spark their interest. Agents shuffle through hundreds of pages of manuscripts and query letters each month. Don’t waste their time by sending them unsolicited boredom. Be concise and entertaining. Your query letter should follow this format:

1. Paragraph 1 - The Teaser
   Write the most attention grabbing sentence of your life. If you have walked on the moon or graduated at the top of our Ivey League class let them know. If you are like the rests of use, find a nice fit between who you are and what your book is about. For example, “I have been a health inspector for 25 years and I propose to write a book about what you are really paying for when you go out to eat.” The combination of who you are and the topic of you book needs to be a believable and provide a compelling reason to read more. Being able to match who you are with what you intend to write will generally be enough to get the agent to read the second paragraph.
2. Paragraph 2 - Enlarge the Idea
   Expound about what you intend to write about. Include examples and anecdotes that exemplify your idea. Show off your best material. Writing a good paragraph about your book gives the agent some confidence that you can actually write the book.
3. Paragraph 3 – You You You
   Now that you have shown you have a good idea for a book show that you are the best person to write it. The two most common ways to show you are the best is by describing relevant facts that show the connection between you and your idea, and by flexing academic credentials.
4. Paragraph 4 – Close It
   Tell the agent you are only showing your proposal to only one agent at a time, and only show you proposal to one agent at a time. Agents hate worrying that someone else is going to steal their gem. Tell the agent why you decided to send your query letter to them. Give them your phone number, email address, and home or work address.

Remember to make your query letter exciting. Use it to make the agents crave more of your writing. Do not exceed one page or your letter will go into the trash instead of in front of their eyes.

Do you want to have a chapter of your novel critiqued? Join Review Fuse and let us help you refine your novel.

Jacob

Part 1 of this series - The Publishing Process

Part 2 of this series - Preparing a Proposal

Getting the attention of the right agent is hard. Many good books languish in purgatory because their author can’t get an agent to even glance at it. As the days tick by waiting for an agent to respond don’t be surprised if you lose some hair or can’t resist eating an entire box of chocolates in 5 minutes. Don’t get down on yourself, waiting for a stranger to tell you if your baby is cute or ugly is truly maddening.

You can increase your chances of landing an agent by getting to know the agent before introducing your work to them. Agents divide themselves into groups, the most obvious being fiction and non-fiction. Look for agents that love the kind of work you are writing. If you are writing a the History of Harvard don’t send it to an agent that has only represented romance novels with a western twist.

Get a copy or the Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino to help you get to know some agents. Use this book, or another one like it, to find out what books agents have represented in the past and what each agent expects in a query letter. Work smart and work hard and you will eventually get an agent to seriously consider your novel.

Do you want to discover what your peers think of your novel? Upload a chapter and let us critique it for you.

Jacob

See Part 1 of this series - The Publishing Process

Before you send your query letter to an agent prepare a proposal. Whoa! Why do I need a proposal before I send out query letters? If an agent follows up with you and you are not prepared, you lose your best chance at getting published. Nothing reeks of unprofessional and unorganized more than unpreparedness.

A proposal is a thorough outline of your book. The proposal should contain the following elements:

Overview

The first two to three pages should be summary of your idea for the book. Provide a synopsis of your fiction work or an explanation of the topics you intend to write about for a non-fiction piece.

Market

The next three to four pages should be a description of the audience your book will appeal to. This should include the age, education level, socio-economic status, and general reading habits your target audience.

Competition

Description other books that cover similar topics. Agents can easily discover if you’re omitting something so be honest. A crowded market is not necessarily a bad market. A crowd is one indication that people are making money in that market.

Author(s)

Briefly description yourself and the co-authors of the book. Brag and boast about yourself and the other authors. Convince the agent that you are the best author for this book. If you don’t convince the agent to support you, he will never convince a publishing house to back you.

Chapter Summaries

The majority of the proposal should be a chapter by chapter outline of the book. For fiction pieces include up to twenty pages of text from your book. For non-fiction provide a minimal outline summarizing the heart of each chapter.

Delivery

End with a short paragraph stating the length of and deadline for completing the book.

To learn more about preparing a proposal and how to get published I recommend reading either The Complete Starter Kit for Aspiring Writers or 100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know, both by Scott Edelstei.

Find out what your peers think about your book by uploading a chapter for critique.

Jacob

Why do books with contrived plots and tired characters fly off of the shelves of book stores while a publisher won’t even open your masterpiece? Because a crappy book backed by a literary agent will go a thousand times farther than a masterpiece without an agent. .

The first step in the publication process is to not write your book. STOP the presses! What? The goal is to get a book published not to write a book. Start with the end in mind not the beginning.

The second step is to find an agent. I am sure it happens, but I don’t know anyone who has been published without landing a literary agent. If you have already created your work of genius, don’t fret all is not lost.

You need an agent because the publishing world is a closed community. Publishers only accept books through specified channels, namely agents. Publishers let agents dig the diamonds out of the dregs people write every day. Getting an agent to support your work is your best avenue to publication. Sending a manuscript to a publisher is the quickest road to rejection.

Publishers consider manuscripts only after agents with solid track records recommend them. This makes agents picky about who they work with. It is not easy to land an agent, but once you do they will work tirelessly to get your book published. In return agents generally get 15% of the deal. Before you go ballistic at the thought of parting with a small fortune, remember 85% of something is a whole lot more than 100% of nothing.

I will talk about what to send an agent in more detail in part two of this series. For now remember agents don’t want to read your 500 page manuscript, they want to read a one page query letter that summarizes your idea, tells them who you are, and explains why you are qualified to write this book. The query letter is important because if you can’t write a good one page letter how can an agent trust you to write an entire novel?

Read the 2009 Guide To Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino to learn more about how to find a literary agent and stay tuned for part two of this series.

Jacob